Iowa will not participate this summer in a federal program that gives $40 per month to each child in a low-income family to help with food costs while school is out, state officials have announced.
The state has notified the U.S. Department of Agriculture that it will not participate in the 2024 Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children — or Summer EBT — program, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Education said in a Friday news release.
“Federal COVID-era cash benefit programs are not sustainable and don’t provide long-term solutions for the issues impacting children and families. An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic,” Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds said in the news release.
she simply wants to hurt poor people.
it’s not a ‘covid-era’ thing anymore, it’s a permanent program now–one paid for by the feds, who will also reimburse states for half of their expenses to distribute those funds to those eligible… which really isn’t that much seeing how that most of the recipients probably already applied-for or are receiving other benefits for low-income households.